Art exhibition "Höhenrausch.2 - Bridges in the Sky" at OK Centrum Linz, 12 May-16 October 2011, among others works of the Icelandic artist Rúri

The rooftops of Linz are 2011 again the scene of a spectacular exhibition.

Among others the Icelandic artist Rúrí will take part. For a long time now Ruri has been spinning a web inspired by a theme that is dear to her heart. She documents rivers in Icelandic nature, in view of their possible, planned or current harnessing for hydro-electric power. That work has been manifested in many forms, as witness a publication which has recently appeared: Ruri-Endangered Waters. Best known of the works is no doubt her contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2003, Archive-Endangered Waters, where images and sounds of various waterfalls could be selected from a collection in a cabinet. In the latest in this series of works, Flooding-Nature Lost, which is exhibited at Start Art, she looks face-to-face at the impending danger to which she alludes in all the waterfall works: the harnessing of one specific waterfall, which is thereby obliterated from the landscape, and its water diverted to flow invisibly through turbines to generate power. The Tofrafoss waterfall used to cascade off the cliffs at Kringilsarrani, near the source of the Jokulsa river under the Bruarjokull glacier, but it vanished when the river was dammed at Karahnjukar and the Halslon reservoir formed, filling the river canyon and far more. Ruri made a record of the waterfall in all its glory, with the assistance of cameraman Fridthjofur Helgason; and now that record of the waterfall and its thundering roar forms the framework of the piece. Rather than directly documenting how the waterfall was inundated, Ruri shows the beauty of the waterfall as it was, and addresses other aspects of the hydro project. On the one hand she presents data on the statistical benefits and consequences of the harnessing of the river, while on the other she shows pink-footed geese, compelled to abandon their nesting-grounds as the water level rises in the reservoir.